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The Web Security Mailing List

"The three were charged two years ago for a 2006 scheme in which they
allegedly hacked into online brokerages or created new accounts using
stolen identities, then bought and sold stocks in order to manipulate
prices to their benefit.

They hacked into more than 60 accounts
in nine brokerage firms, including ETrade and TD Ameritrade, according
to authorities. One firm lost more than US$2 million because of the
scam.

The men allegedly drove up prices of low-volume stocks they
owned, such as Acordia Therapeutics, Pacel and IGI, by buying shares
with the hacked accounts, then dumping the stocks before the price
dropped, authorities said. In October 2006, they also manipulated the
price of near-worthless "put" options for Google, which gave buyers the
option of selling Google stock for $240 (about half its value at the
time), authorities said." - PCworld

I was actually just chatting about this exact thing the other day and how easy it would be for an attacker to do. Had they really been organized they could have done some real damage. This is the kind of 'hacking' that actually worries me. Imagine doing this to manipulate OIL stock prices....